Hi! Before I start, i know what many can say: what the heck you want to enable 3d acceleration for in such an oldie.. Well.. lets say that if i choose Gentoo, it was because my curiosity in putting things to work. . And, in previous versions of Xorg etc, acceleration worked like a charm. It is with the new way of configuring 3D acceleration inside the kernel, that this radeon (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV100 LY [Mobility Radeon 7000] stoped working properly. Now, if i hear somebody with a real knowledge about this, telling me: forget it, there is NO WAY to make this card work with new KMS/DRI, I`ll just top trying. But as far as I`ve googled and read, nobody say it can`t be put to work. Sorry for my english, not english-speaker. Following Gentoo guide for 3d acceleration, doesn`t work for this card. If I disable every framebuffer driver, as directed by the guide (this is to give access to fbcon to take control of framebuffering), i cant even boot the kernel, just got a few lines, then it freezes, and then, after a while, a nice purple colored aurora australis . If i load radeon framebuffer, kernell boots ok, but Xorg complains about KMS modesetting not supported, and after playing and playing around with kernel options, emerging packages with different USES, (believe me, I have tried almost everything, thats why im not posting any logs, info, etc), etc. What do I want with this post? Well, to start a thread, with colaboration from experts, to start from scratch trying to make this card work. Perhaps there is a kernel config wich should be compiled as module, instead "in kernel", perhaps some option that should/shouldnt be enabled.. I dont know.. So, to start, I would like to hear opinions, experiences, and start working on it to succesfully make this card work as it used to work, or at list, as it should with today software. Thank you very much, I`m waiting for your opinions!!

Last edited by neopablo2000 on Sun Aug 19, 2012 1:50 am; edited 1 time in total

Maybe you could add some paragraph spaces for folks that have mild blindness from reading code for too many years

Also

neopablo2000 wrote:

im not posting any logs, info, etc

Those are often a valuable way for anyone able to help to try and make sence of the problem. I have a genuine curiosity about diagnostics but blind diagnosing problems is often extremely difficult to nearly impossible._________________Compiling Gentoo since version 1.4
Thousands of Gentoo Installs Completed
Emerged on every continent but Antarctica
Compile long and Prosper!

[ 158.852]
This is a pre-release version of the X server from The X.Org Foundation.

It is not supported in any way.
Bugs may be filed in the bugzilla at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/.
Select the "xorg" product for bugs you find in this release.
Before reporting bugs in pre-release versions please check the
latest version in the X.Org Foundation git repository.
See http://wiki.x.org/wiki/GitPage for git access instructions.

[ 159.783] (II) RADEON(0): Cannot access BIOS or it is not valid.
If your card is TV-in capable you will need to specify options RageTheatreCrystal, RageTheatreTunerPort,
RageTheatreSVideoPort and TunerType in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

[ 159.783] (!!) RADEON(0): MergedFB support has been removed and replaced with xrandr 1.2 support

...seconds and then i get a purple colored aurora borealis . If you see radeon framebuffer activated, its because if I dont do this, i could not boot. With this configuration, I can boot normally to console. If I launch startx (I have Xfce installed), Xfce starts, but I cant see text in buttons or menues, but I think this is not Xorg`s fault, but a kernel/driver misconfiguration. I tried everything, from setting things in kernel statically, as well as modules, activated and deactivated many options, but nothing worked.
If I insist its because this card worked just fine with 3d acceleration in previous version of gentoo (this is, previous kernels, and Xorgs, and etc ), and I dont see why i wouldnt work now. So i keep thinking this is a misconfiguration, or something that should be configured in a different way than any other radeon card. Well, waiting advice from experts!
If you need any other log, just ask it. Im here, by my pc waiting answers, while keep trying things. Thanks in advance!!

Well, i keep trying options.. If I follow gentoo´s guide for hardware acceleration, this is: disabling any framebuffer device in kernel, activating radeon kms, agp, etc, my powerbook doesn`t boot, meaning it reaches kernel loading, but after that, i get that wonderful purple aurora... And I was thinking that when modesetting wasnt made by kernel, you needed to load your card configuration into xorg.conf. And I always needed to load modelines in this file, other way, it would cause the same screen I`m seeing now. But.. is there a way to set modelines in kernel? Or is it just plain autodetect? I still have not too much clear how dri, drm, and kms works now.. So, any hint would be very appreciated! Thank you!!

Well, some news about my graphic adventure . I kept trying not enabling a framebuffer at all, and trying to figure out why my screen showed nothing but a purpled aurora... and all in a sudden.. i thought.. what if i plug my desktop monitor to the vga output of my powerbook and see what happens...? and guess what: it works on my pc monitor! and to show how, here i paste the output of dmesg and Xorg.0.log:

I started Xfced with startx, and all was ok!! No problems with fonts, and acceleration works like a charm.. but in my vga, not my notebook screen... Like I said, i used to have this problem, and i used to solve it by adding correct modelines in my xorg.conf... but... how do i solve it in new kms?? any ideas? cheers!!

I remember that my screen never worked with such a resolution, bringing me the famous purple screen.. I think I can manage to force loading the right screen resolution for X to work.. Still, it doesn`t solve my problem of the same purple screen in pure console.. I gonna try to load right resolution to launch startx at least. Waiting for advice while searching... Thank you!

Hi, I keep trying to solve something... the only way to make xorg run, is following gentoo´s guide, but that way, I have no image in my main display (LVDS from now on). Just image through VGA or S-Video to my television. Doing things the right way, i get this relevant lines in dmseg:

If somebody sees something that shouldn`t be there.. will be much appreciated . I really have no clue. Even disabling KMS on kernel, and having 3D disabled, cant get Xorg to work, no text in boxes, and after some minutes, it freezes.. Thank you!

Unfortunately, it seems to me that radeon on powerpc is in the advanced state of decay. I have a G4 powermac with a R300 based card, and it is a pain nowadays, while it used to work very decently abbout five years ago. From what I learned when I last tried it (a couple of months ago), KMS and gallium are unstable at best, and the only way to get them to work decently is to completely disable AGP (there's an option to the radeon KMS module, don't remember from the top of my head). What works for me is

- The old radeon framebuffer driver, _no_ KMS
- The xorg "radeon" driver which will revert to the old, non-modesetting code this way
- 3D with the MESA "classic" driver

This gives me a working desktop and basic 3D. However, those old drivers are not maintained anymore and slowly bitrotting, 3D is unstable and freezes the machine every now and then, so it's best to keep away from it. In particular, don't use a compositing window manager. Also, take a look at "man radeon"; there is a small set of ppc specific options to the non-modesetting driver which affect the enumeration of outputs and might fix your problems with the panel. Also, try to enforce a supported resultion via xorg.conf. I think KMS is only worth to bother with if there is absolutely no success this way.

Well, my problem es "partially" solved. Thank you DirtyHairy for your directions, they were of much help for me! After reading this, and finding Gentoo PPC FAQ, i did disable KMS, enabled radeon framebuffer, and made a basic xorg.conf. Anyway, there is no way to have even a basic 3D acceleration, i keep getting a working desktop, but no way to read fonts (they appear garbbled and unreadable), this is when using a 24 color depth. If I use 16 color depth, fonts are displayed, but so so so whithe, that it is impossible to see if you dont select it to read . In addition, colors are not displayed correctly. I don`t know if i explain myself right, not english speaker and i`m doing my best, haha! I can post a picture perhaps later to graphic what i`m saying. So, the only way to make xorg work, was to add Option NoAccel true.. this mean, no acceleration at all. That way, i have Xfce working. Of course, i`m not satisfied with the results, and will keep trying options to make this work as it should, until something make me think its impossible, haha! So I don`t consider to mark this post as solved.. but this is my opinion, not admins one, haha! Thank you so very very much for helping me.. I`ll keep in touch for news!!

Glad it helped. You should be able to get (most likely unstable) 3D acceleration using the mesa "classic" driver (via eselect). As for the funky colors, you can play around with either XAA or EXA; there's a bunch of options to toggle various options for both of those. As an alternative, I remember having a funky color issue with an older radeon in my powermac which I worked around by hacking cairo. Take a look at https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186281 , there's more information on that specific problem there (which might or might not be the same issue you are seeing). I also attached a bunch of cairo patches there, if you manage to hack them into modern day's cairo, it might solve your problem.

Even having radeon and r100 in my VIDEO_CARDS, doesnt seem to be reflected here, perhaps because its not supported for hardware acceleration? and the only classic thing i see about mesa, is Software Renderer... i don`t know, if its ok, I keep going through other options, thank you very much again!

P.D: About EXA/XAA, thats is something i always had problems with. But I always solved it by using XAA acceleration setted in xorg.conf. But, now, even choosing XAA as architecture, in my xorg`s log I see the option is setted, but after that, a lot references to EXA, like if it is being ignored... Right now I`m compiling webkit, wich will take for ever at this speed . After that, I can post my logs with/without setting XAA in xorg, to see if there is difference. And this thing about colors, and fonts was usually corrected by choosing XAA. But here, it looks like XAA is not being used.

For mesa, what you are looking for is the r300 classic driver. However, afaik, it has been removed in mesa 8; the only way to get it back is to dowgrade mesa to 7.x. As for XAA vs. EXA, I don't know, could you post your Xorg.0.log (preferably via pastebin)?

After that, irrelevant Screen Section. This options you see in xorg.conf, are just options i was trying after reading man radeon.. but no matter what i set.. results are the same. I loaded a couple of pictures too, for you to see what my desktop looks like, if i don`t disable acceleration through "NoAccel" "true":

Indeed, it looks like the XAA parameter is ignored. Might be a regression in the radeon driver, you could try an older (or newer) one. Btw, there shouldn't be any need to disable AGP with the non-modesetting driver. As for mesa, downgrading should be save, just mask 8.x. Of course, this is not a solution for the ages, at some point, dependencies on 8.x will appear, but I don't think that you'll run into any issues just yet.

Ok, I kept trying things.. but for what I`ve read, there is not even UMS support from mesa 8 to older radeon cards, so, I have to live with no kind of acceleration.. I tried to downgrade mesa 8 to 7, but i have many complains about blocked packages.. And i really need help to try to downgrade mesa (what package should I downgrade before, what problems might i face after downgrading, etc), and that way, see if this works with at least UMS dri support. I keep with my setting "NoAccel true" for X to work. Other way, i get no real colors and no text on boxes and menues, as I showed in my posted pics. Im lost here! Thank you!

Well, being it weekend, I took the necessary time to play a little with my problem, and i got it solved . Basically, after some research, I found out that:

- XAA has no more support in newer xorg-server
- From my experience, my card never worked before with EXA, so, there was no reason for it to work now. What i had to do was to find out what version of xorg-server was the last supporting XAA, and i did. So, I downgraded to xorg-server-1.12.2, the last version known to support it.

I also had to downgrade xf86-video-ati too, to a version wich could compile with XAA support, and it was 6.14.4. I had trouble trying to downgrade mesa, because mesa 8.0.3 was blocking eselect-opengl, even I was trying to get mesa-7.11.2... so, i had to downgrade mesa without dependencies (i took the risk ) with emerge -avO, but nothing bad happened. Mesa compiled perfectly not complaining about anything. Then i faced the typical problem of not having mouse or keyboard support, so i had to use disable autoadddevices, and reemerge xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse. After that, i had a totally functional xorg, with XAA and 3d acceleration in perfect conditions . I just have one more question: all this work involved downgrading packages wich cannot be upgraded if I want to keep 3D acceleration (I know that perhaps, one day, upgrading will be mandatory) but until then, whats the best way to keep this packages away from upgrading? I know I had to mask newer version, but if I update world, newer ebuilds will appear, and I should keep masking then.. and I dont think this is a clean way.. anyway, I hear opinions! I didnt want to make this thread larger than it is, so if anybody face same situation, and wants more direction, just ask, and i`ll be here . Thanks to everyone who helped me in this thread, i always loved gentoo comunity! To serve: neopablo .

Glad it worked. Masking mesa is more a topic for "Portage & Programming", however, I'd be surprised if you run into any issues with that in the near future. Xorg is more troublesome imho. I don't know about any better way to mask stuff other than successively addings masks to portage.mask. Are you running ppc or ~ppc?

I'm not sure whether you're aware of this, but you can mask all mesa versions > 8 by putting ">=media-libs/mesa-8.0.0" into the mask file. Of course, once packages start to depend on mesa 8+ , you'll start to run into trouble earlier on ~ppc than on ppc

Wowww! I didn't know! But now I do . Thank you!! And I was thinking... when mesa 8 become necessary... will kms be working with this old card...? . I don't know if this is a matter of bugs with new way of managing video in kernel... or just a conscious indiference about old cards . Its just a rethoric question, hahaha! _________________Dont blame me for being curious.. Curiosity led to the biggest discoveries in history! .. And curiosity brought me to Gentoo..

I wouldn't cross my fingers for things getting better on the KMS side. From what I found researching the net when I messed around with KMS on mac, I think the trouble is not so much the age of the graphics card, but the simple fact that desktop ppc has become a dying platform. On x86, the driver / card combo would likely work fine, but making it work smoothly on another architecture requires time and a dedicated effort from developers who have the necessary skill and the hardware in question. In addition, from what I read, there are problems with the way AGP is implemented in powermacs, specifically regarding memory conistency, which gallium / radeon KMS were not built to deal with, so AGP via KMS might well never work.

ppc / desktop linux always has been a small community, and with apple's move to x86, it has become a dying species. In a couple of years, I think the most reasonable path is installing a vintage distro or moving on to a more conventional and, let's be honest, much faster x86 based machine Just my two cents...

Haha! Thank you Dirty! . Yeah, I think I knew in some way PPC would in some moment die. When I heard that PS3 had the same architecture, i only thought: well, that will just add a couple of years to this powerbook . And I know I shouldn`t worry too much about this, but for me, Linux is kinda God! Allmighty, making things work were others failed, hahaha! But sometimes I forget that behind Linux, there are people working without being paid (mostly) for what they do, and that my powerbook is working today, thanks to that effort. So, im happy that this ppc of mine is still alive, and usefull! And the most important thing: this huge community, widely open to help!. Cheers!! _________________Dont blame me for being curious.. Curiosity led to the biggest discoveries in history! .. And curiosity brought me to Gentoo..